Blood, bravery and a fire-breathing clown: Welcome to Freakshow Wrestling

The Details

What is Freakshow Wrestling? I’ll let its creator, Sinn Bodhi, try to describe it: “Freakshow Wrestling is a comedy stunt show. It’s Pee-wee’s Playhouse meets Rob Zombie. It’s wrestling and it’s sideshow and magic and music, all smashed together in an Adult Swim-comes-to-life sort of way.” In other words, Freakshow Wrestling is hard to describe. So we’ll let these photos of its June 30 battle at Las Vegas Country Saloon do the talking, starting with the image above. Bodhi explains: “Techno Destructo—one of GWAR’s original members—is squishing my head with his robotic arm. We’re in the middle of a Last Man Dancing Match, meaning every time the DJ plays a song, we have to stop and dance to it. At some point, I bit Techno’s nose, and the ref was yelling at me for that. While I was distracted, Techno got me in his claw.”

Freakshow Wrestling announcer The Shocker and variety artist Bizzaro strap an unsuspecting audience member into this Saw-inspired deathtrap. That red hat is not sitting on top of the box; it’s being worn by Bizzaro, who’s standing precisely behind the box in a black trench coat.

Tommy the Gay Referee slipped out of the black and white to fight A Man Duh in an evening gown match. Victory went to whoever stripped off his opponent’s gown first. Here, Tommy tries to remove A Man Duh’s dress from the bottom up, and A Man Duh tries to remove Tommy’s from the top down.

This photo of shell-shocked, chicken blood-faced referee Daniel Foster was taken after the Barnyard Brawl match, in which a chicken fought a donkey and a pink gorilla. Long story short: A chicken is no match for a donkey and a gorilla.

Sister Mary Behemoth holds the baby Jesus. The doll portraying the young savior has appeared in several Freakshow Wrestling matches, including a three-way matchup with Leroy One-man Wolfpack and Satan. The baby won.

See that needle sticking out of Sia Synn’s forearm? She stuck it there herself. It didn’t go in easily … nor did it come out the other side easily. It looked like she might tear her skin off in the process. And this was after Synn snuffed out a blowtorch with her tongue.

Jenn O. Cide used this metal bowl to hold stray bits of broken glass. “Basically,” Jenn explains, “I smashed a wine glass and ate it. It was a good vintage, but the glass was unpleasant going down. And before I could finish it, some 7-foot-tall fire-breathing clown popped up behind me, hoping for a pillow fight. Thank God my buddy Scrotum Moon showed up at the last second and beat the crap out of him.”

That’s Jeff Retardy doing a Swanton Bomb off the top turnbuckle. Jeff’s victims: the Old-Age Outlaws. According to The Shocker, “Everybody likes to think mats are like trampolines—all mattresses and baby feathers—but they’re not. Our mat used to be a boxing mat, so it has steel beams and plywood and padding that’s just slightly thicker than the wood. It’s probably got the same give as your living room carpet.”

Bryan Adams

Staysha the Sin City Strong Woman and Disgustus were supposed to compete in a straightjacket escape race—first one out of the jacket wins. But referee Ernest P. Figplucker, in cahoots with Disgustus, strapped only Staysha in. Still, before Disgustus could get brass knuckles from Figplucker, Staysha escaped and chokeslammed him. Lights out.